Ruthie's Revenge
by sophronia
Summary: Ruthie wants Kevin out of the Camdens' lives. She's got a plan . . .
1. Part One

DISCLAIMER: You know the drill. Don't own the characters, etc. The plot is all mine. (Special thanks to Cathryn and the other folks at TWoP for the idea, actually.) 

Part One

Ruthie saw the bruises.

She was pretending to be asleep, as she usually did when Lucy came upstairs after her dates with Kevin. Lucy never checked to see if Ruthie was actually sleeping or not. So Ruthie had heard her sister crying after the date last week, and again after the date a few days ago. She knew that things were not going well for Lucy and Kevin, and it made her very happy.

On this night, Lucy's eyes were red, but she wasn't crying. Her mouth looked odd – her lips were kid of puffy, as if she'd been kissed really hard. Usually, kissing would make Lucy smiley and giggly, but it hadn't been that way with Kevin. Not for a while now.

As Ruthie watched from her bed, Lucy sat in front of the mirror and slowly unbuttoned her shirt. It was when she pulled it off that Ruthie saw them – four perfect fingerprint marks on the backs of  Lucy's upper arms. Bruises. Ruthie glanced into the mirror and saw the purple thumbprints standing out clearly on the front of her sister's arms. It was like someone had grabbed her and held her tightly by the arms, preventing her from getting away.

Lucy stared at the reflection of the bruises in the mirror. Gingerly she lifted her right hand and touched the marks on her left arm. She winced. A tear spilled out of one eye and ran down her cheek. Sighing heavily, she got up, went to the closet, and rummaged through a storage box in the back until she pulled out her flannel winter pajamas – the ones with long sleeves.

Ruthie turned away as her sister climbed into the bed next to her own. She wouldn't be able to relax now. As she waited for Lucy to cry herself to sleep, she thought about Kevin, the handsome police officer who had come into her older sister's life just as she was despairing of ever finding someone to love her. He seemed perfect, and their parents adored him – so much that they had let him move into the garage apartment so he could be "close to Lucy," as he put it. 

Ruthie hated him. And she was determined to get rid of him for good.


	2. Part Two

Part Two  

It had started fairly innocuously. The little insults, accusing her of being a snitch. But always with a smile on his face, so you knew he was kidding.

Except he wasn't.

Ruthie had never before encountered anyone who stood up to her. Her parents thought she was perfect – smart, sensible and innocent. Her brothers and sisters had challenged her occasionally, but she had outwitted them every time, and finally they had all acquiesced to her obvious superiority. She could tell anyone anything she wanted, lie to people, eavesdrop on conversations, and no one ever did anything about it.

This was the way things were supposed to be. She was by far the most intelligent person in the family, the most important, the most gifted, and (she thought when she caught her reflection in the bedroom mirror from time to time) she was shaping up to be the best looking, too.

But then Kevin arrived.

It wasn't long before Kevin caught her listening in on someone. She played it cute, putting on her charming face and asking him if he wanted to know what they were talking about. To her shock, Kevin told her off instead.

"Don't let me catch you again," he told her sternly. "I won't let you off with a warning next time."

Ruthie looked into his eyes and, incredibly, she was scared. He saw right through her – but worse, she saw right through him as well. She recognized the darkness in his eyes, the threat that lay under the layer of superficial charm. Here was someone who understood her – because he was just like her. Here was someone who was familiar with the game that she played every day of her life, the Little Ruthie Camden game, where she was the smart but cute minister's daughter who always knew the right thing to do. For as long as she could remember she had known that inside, she was nothing at all like Little Ruthie Camden. Now Kevin knew it too. Because inside, he was nothing at all like Kevin Kinkirk, handsome cop and all-around good guy. He was playing his own game.

And he had a gun.

"Give a man a gun and a uniform, and he thinks he owns the world," she snarked to cover her fear. But she knew Kevin was pleased that he had frightened her.

She had tried to say something about it to her mother later that day, but as usual, her mother wouldn't listen. Annie Camden never liked hearing things that she didn't agree with.

"Oh, Ruthie, Kevin was just joking!" Annie said, smiling at her adorable youngest daughter. "You know he's got that dark sense of humor from working as a cop. Don't take it seriously! We all know that he loves Lucy very, very much, and he loves us too. I just hope that Lucy realizes it and marries him before it's too late!"

"I don't know if that's such a great idea," Ruthie said carefully. "The getting married part, I mean."

Annie frowned. "What are you saying, Ruthie? Everyone in this family agrees that Lucy and Kevin are perfect for each other. Look how patient he's being with her while she insists on stringing him along and not making the commitment he wants to make. I'll certainly be happy when he's a real member of this family, and so will we all!" She hugged Ruthie. "I'm sure you will too, you'll see! You're just upset that he might take your sister away from you, that's all. Don't worry, she's not going anywhere."

Ruthie rolled her eyes, since her mother was hugging her and couldn't see her face. She had always used her parents' tendencies to jump to ridiculous conclusions to her advantage. Now, infuriatingly, she found them turned against her. Score one for Kevin. 

It was upsetting, though, to realize how much power Kevin had managed to take from her in only a few weeks in the Camden household. Already her mother was taking his side against Ruthie, her own daughter. Ruthie was appalled that she had slipped enough to allow this to happen. She was the one with authority in the Camden house, and no one was going to step right in and take over from her without a fight. Gun or no gun.


	3. Part Three

Part Three

She had come downstairs to get a drink before bedtime, but when she saw the phone sitting there with nobody around, she thought that she might as well just pick it up and see if anybody was on it. Just to check.

Silently, she lifted the receiver. She heard Robbie's voice on the line, talking to – could it be – Mary! This ought to be good. She leaned against the counter and tried to concentrate on what they were saying, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth.

Then Kevin had spoken. 

"Hey Ruthie, whatcha doin'?"

He was looking at her with his heavy-lidded eyes. Bedroom eyes, Lucy called them. "What did I tell you about listening in to other people's conversations?" 

Keeping her cool, Ruthie hung up the phone. "I wasn't," she explained, "I was going to make a call and I wanted to see if anybody was on the phone."

A smirk crossed Kevin's face. "Now Ruthie," he drawled, "we both know that's not true." He reached out to touch the side of her face and, to her surprise, she felt a tug on her hair.

"Ow," Ruthie pouted, "you pulled my hair."

"I'm sorry, honey," Kevin said in the same drawling tone of voice. "My hand must have caught in your hair. But it doesn't change the fact that you were eavesdropping." He moved closer, as if he was about to put an arm around her.

"I was not," Ruthie said. "I was checking the phone. I swear to God."

"Ruthie, Ruthie," Kevin said, sliding his arm around her shoulder and turning her towards him with a slight pressure from his hand. "How would your dad feel if he heard you lying in the Lord's name like that?" He cuffed her gently under the chin.

"I'm not lying," Ruthie insisted. She tried the technique that always worked on her family. "I just picked it up for a second to see if it was free and I accidentally heard Robbie talking to Mary." Now, of course, he would want to know what they had said, and he would forget all about her transgression. Just like the Camdens always did.

But Kevin didn't fall for it. "You remember what I said last time I caught you," he said calmly. "I'm not going to be able to let you off with just a warning this time." With that, he grabbed her arm and gave her a hard pinch.

"OW!" Ruthie cried out. "You're hurting me!"

Kevin grinned. "Are you telling me that hurt you?" He cuffed her under the chin again, this time hard enough for her to bite her tongue. "A big girl like you, hurt by a little pinch like that?" He pinched her again, much more painfully this time. She tried to pull away, and he held onto her arm and gave it a sharp yank and a twist.

Ruthie was stunned. No one had ever dared to treat her like this before. She was so shocked that it took her several seconds to realize what was actually happening, and by then it was too late to get away. She felt him pinching her again and again, digging his fingers into her skin, and all she could do was try to duck away from him and protect herself as much as she could. Kevin acted as though it was a game; she could hear him saying things like, "So did that hurt, huh? How about that?"

It was all over in a few seconds. She heard his breathing relax as he loomed over her. He dropped her arm, and she dove away from him and across the kitchen to the sink. He let her go, and when she turned to look at him, she realized that he was still smiling. There was an unpleasant gleam in his blue eyes.

"Let that be a lesson to you," Kevin said, still in the same casual, cheerful tone. "A lesson that it's about time you learned, little girl."

Ruthie shot upstairs without looking back. Once she was safely inside her bedroom door, she checked her arms and face carefully. She had to admit, Kevin was an expert. The pink marks from his pinches were already fading. Soon they'd be invisible. Her arm felt wrenched, but of course that had left no mark either. She stuck out her tongue, but couldn't see anything unusual on it.

She had nothing. No evidence. Her parents would never believe her. Annie would remember their conversation from earlier, and she would think that Ruthie was making up stories to get rid of Kevin. Lucy would undoubtedly take Kevin's side. The rest of the family – who knew how they'd react? They might even be happy that someone had finally given her the smackdown they'd longed to give her, especially Simon, who had been her victim a lot more than the rest of them.

So score two for Kevin. But Ruthie was not about to let him get away with it.

When she saw the bruises on Lucy the next night, Ruthie realized that she would have to think fast. If Lucy was stupid enough not to tell her parents when Kevin's violence had left obvious marks on her, then she was completely unable to resist him. She could marry him at any moment – Ruthie had learned that after the whole Matt and Sarah debacle – and then they would never get rid of him. Eric and Annie Camden had taught all their children that marriage was forever, and none of the kids believed it more fervently than Lucy.

Ruthie resolved not to sleep that night until she had a foolproof (or should she say Camden-proof, she thought wryly) plan.


End file.
